by Eric Vall
“The others will gradually awaken, so I thought you might want to relocate those who need to recuperate for our discussions,” the healer said. “I’ve already spoken with these three, and they’d like to help in any way they can.”
“We’ll tell you whatever we can remember,” one of the mages said with a nod, but he immediately winced and grabbed his head again like the gesture had caused him pain.
Shoshanne noticed my concern about this, and she helped the mage lie back down as she filled me in.
“After assessing them, it seems the residual effects of the tranquilizer are a foggy mind, headache, stomach pains, and fatigue. This young man says it feels no worse than a long night of drinking, but I’d like to make them as comfortable as possible after everything they’ve been through. The redheaded girl from earlier didn’t seem at all distressed, and I’ve decided the healing staff must have quelled the effects of the tranquilizer much like your r … well, much like you experienced.”
I nodded my agreement. “That makes a lot of sense. Are you going to work on this next, then?”
“Yes, but it’ll take time to get through all of them, and I still need to clean this room up for when the snatcher returns with the next group,” Shoshanne explained. “Would you like me to have the Defenders help the patients get upstairs before I begin with the healing staff? I can always do my work while the discussions are taking place, and once everyone is awake, I can come clean up.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” I agreed. “Let’s get everyone settled in, and then we can begin, but I’ll have the Defenders clear everything away for you. You’re doing enough as it is, and they’ve offered to assist you for the week.”
“Offered to assist,” Shoshanne clarified, “or been assigned the job by a handsome man with an obsessive need to take care of his women?”
“Let’s just say both,” I said with a smirk.
I divvied up the tasks amongst the Defenders I had on hand, and while half of them helped the waking mages slowly head up the stairs, I explained the necessary cleaning procedures to the others. Then I joined the rest on the second level, and as Shoshanne started working her way through them with her healing staff burning bright, the rest of us quietly discussed the best way to approach the recovered mages.
In the end, we decided to work in pairs while talking to two mages at a time so we wouldn’t overwhelm anyone or miss a single detail. We would regroup when all was done to consolidate everything we found out, and three of our Terra Defenders offered to start building homes in the village for any of the patients who either had nowhere to return to, or preferred being secure in Falmount Rift.
Once I made sure the Defenders on the first floor would help escort the last mages up to us when they finally awoke, I sent Cayla to help Deya with some target practice. Then I paired up with Aurora to sit down with two mages who had already been rejuvenated by Shoshanne.
“Lorin,” the young blonde woman said when I asked her name. “Ignis Mage.”
She was wearing a plain but tattered dress that looked like it hadn’t been washed in months, and the fiery red belt she wore around her waist to signify her element was frayed and torn as she twisted it nervously between her fingers.
I nodded and turned to the man beside her, and he fidgeted with his trembling hands while his deep brown eyes worked hard to hold my gaze.
“Keris,” he said quietly. “Aer Mage.”
I couldn’t make out the trim on his baggy mage’s robes from how dirty they were, and it looked like the majority of the mess was soot and dirt. There were some notable splatters of dried blood here and there, and I was half sure the dark brown curls on his head were matted with blood near his temples.
The man seemed to have a hefty dose of pent up energy, and his constant fidgeting initially made me skeptical, until I realized he was trying to keep his hands from shaking. Every couple of minutes, he glanced toward the windows like he was expecting an attack at any second, and when he outright said he was expecting this, Aurora furrowed her brows.
“What makes you think they’ll attack us here?” she asked.
“They’ll attack,” he said as he fidgeted some more and nodded. “They’ll attack, and we’ll all die.”
“Breathe,” Lorin urged the man, and he took a clipped and shallow breath that hardly counted.
“Do you know when you were abducted?” I asked Keris.
“No,” he admitted, and he plucked at the sallow skin on his bony arm, “but I’m a lot smaller than I was before.”
“Well, you’re home safe now,” Aurora assured him.
“No, nowhere is safe,” he argued. “They attack their own, and they’ll attack you. We’ll all die.”
“They attack their own?” I asked as my stomach clenched.
“Yes,” Lorin said quietly. “There are ogres out there, but I don’t know how he found them. I’d never seen an ogre in my life. They’re … they’re very violent. I could feel his frustration with them, too. In my head, I mean. It was very strong. He wanted us to keep them in line, but we couldn’t. I remember trying and trying, but I couldn’t do it. Then everything went black.”
“You must have overtaxed yourself,” Aurora guessed. “We’re concerned this rune will push the mages beyond their limits. Do you know how you managed to recover?”
“I don’t know,” Lorin admitted. “I think I was delirious. I just remember crawling through the woods. I killed something and ate it, and I slept somewhere. I think it was by a tree … then there was green light everywhere. I tried to run, and the green light followed me. Then I woke up here.”
“The green light is a machine I’ve built to help us safely recapture the mages,” I explained. “It wouldn’t harm you, that’s how we’ve designed it. The channeling gem is green.”
Keris started nodding repeatedly when I said this, and I glanced over at him.
“Green’s better than red,” he muttered. “Green is fast, but red is mean.”
“Do you mean you’ve seen a machine that glows red?” I asked, and I immediately thought of Big Red at the gates of the Oculus.
“Yeah,” the mage said as he began to knead his hands until they were white. “Red was pretty bad, and I told him red was bad, but he didn’t listen. He made me go back anyways. Green was better, I guess. Green just made it all stop.”
I exchanged a look with Aurora, and I knew we’d both caught on the same notion. Clearly, this man had been sent to the Oculus, and after running into Big Red, he’d apparently returned to the Master and told him the problem. It must have happened just today, because Big Red had said there weren’t any issues yet, but why the Master would send the mage back after hearing about the automaton was beyond me.
“What did he tell you to do when he sent you back to the red one?” I asked, and I tried to keep my voice steady rather than pressing him too much into a subject that seemed to upset him quite a lot.
“No, I didn’t go back,” Keris said with a fervent shake of his head. “I was hungry, and I couldn’t make it. Then the green one showed up and made it all stop. I thought the others would kill me first, but I didn’t care much.”
“The other mages attacked you?” I asked with a frown.
“There’s just too many,” Keris said as he looked back toward the window. “The orders make no sense, there’s too many of them coming in. I had to go back, but I couldn’t, and my head hurt so much when I realized I couldn’t. Everything was hot like my head was burning. Then the others started beating me with sticks, but I didn’t care.”
I sighed as I rifled my hair, and I tried to push down the fury burning in my stomach. If the Master was letting his own soldiers turn against each other to keep them in line, we could end up losing our mages before we recaptured them, but the notion that he’d need to resort to this made me wonder.
“Keris, how many others were there?”
“Too many,” he said with a nervous nod. “It’s never quiet, and everyone’s hungry. I ate one
I was so hungry, but I didn’t care.”
“You … ate someone?” Aurora asked uneasily, and Lorin averted her gaze like this didn’t surprise her.
“Lorin,” I said, “do you know how many there are? Even just a guess would help.”
“Hundreds, thousands,” she said with a shrug. “I never saw them all. There’s a lot of tunnels and chambers, and I walked a lot, but I could never tell where I was. Everything was confusing and never seemed to end, so I just walked until I was lost in the dark.”
“The place he kept you has tunnels and chambers that never seem to end,” I mused. “Was there any daylight where you were? I’ve seen a drawing of the fortress, and it looked like it was above ground?”
“Some of it is,” she said. “I went up at first, and there were a couple windows up there, but mostly firelight. I got to go outside to help drag the bodies in, though, and then I could see the sun.”
“What bodies?” Aurora asked.
“All kinds of bodies,” Lorin replied. “Some of them were dead, and we ate them, but then the ogres started taking them. We didn’t eat much after that. Some of the bodies were mages that had been branded and brought to us. Some of them were creatures I’d never seen before. I recognized the elves because they had pointy ears.”
“He’s bringing more elves in?” I immediately asked, and Lorin nodded.
“So, there’s all kinds of creatures out there, and all of them are under the Master’s control,” Aurora mused. “Do they all have different jobs to do?”
“I don’t know,” Lorin admitted. “I saw the ogres moving rocks on the grounds sometimes. I dragged bodies in with other mages and some of the elves, but I remember going to Serin a few times to help capture more of us.”
“And how did you get in and out of the fortress?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Lorin frowned in confusion. “I walked out.”
“Yeah, but where was the entrance? Is it a tunneled entrance, a gate, a stone door?”
Lorin furrowed her brow for a moment and looked at Keris, but the man just shrugged.
“I guess I’m not too sure,” Lorin said. “I know I went in and out, but I can’t remember where. There must have been a door.”
“Do you remember what side of the fortress you exited from?” I tried, but the woman shook her head, and I could tell it was frustrating her that she couldn’t remember. “It’s alright. We’re just having trouble figuring out the layout of the place.”
“It’s endless,” Keris said as he fidgeted a bit more. “If you go up, it’s all corners, and if you go down, it’s all tunnels.”
“Corners?” Aurora asked. “Like hallways that turn?”
“I guess,” the man said with a shrug. “I just remember turning and going nowhere, and then my head was burning some more so I tried to get back down to the tunnels. It smelled strange up there, too. Like … metal or something. Eventually, I made it back to the tunnels, though.”
I sat up a bit straighter as my curiosity was piqued. “Metal?”
“Yeah, I noticed that, too,” Lorin said as she looked off across the room. “Like how copper has a distinct smell, or the taste of blood.”
“Have you ever been to a blacksmith’s shop?” I asked. “There’s a distinct smell that molten metal gives off, and if the Master is forging some kind of weaponry indoors, it would probably smell pretty strong.”
“I don’t know,” Lorin said, and she looked frustrated again. “I don’t remember everything, I just know it was hot, and my head began to feel like it was burning, too. Then I was ordered to bring more bodies in, and … I guess I walked out? Somehow.”
I could tell both of them were becoming upset with the gaps in their memories, so I decided to end the discussion so they could recuperate a bit.
“Do either of you have family here?” I asked. “Friends or anyone you can stay with?”
“No,” Lorin replied and dropped her eyes. “My sister lives in Cedis, but I’m alone here. I used to live in the Oculus, but I don’t want to go there. They’ll just take me back again.”
“We’ve been doing everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Aurora assured her, “but you can stay here in Falmount if you wish. We have houses available, and a constant patrol around the perimeter of the town. Right now, daily training sessions are taking place here, too. It would be a good idea for both of you to attend.”
“I’d like to stay here,” Lorin said as her eyes brimmed with tears. “I don’t want to go back to the Oculus.”
“That’s completely fine, you don’t need to,” I said gently. “Why don’t you rest here for a while and eat a bit until you feel better? We can have a Defender show you where you’ll be staying once you’re feeling up to it. What about you, Keris?”
“I had a wife, but they killed her,” he said as he glanced toward the windows for maybe the twentieth time.
“They killed her?” Aurora asked in shock. “When? Who?”
“The ones who got me,” he said, and his tone was hollow. “That’s the last thing I remember before everything changed. She was an Ignis Mage, and she tried to hold them off, but then … I felt what they did, through my magery. Her lungs ruptured.”
My hands were numb as I instinctively reached over to my half-elf, and when I took her hand, she was as cold as ice.
“I-I’m sorry,” Aurora said quietly. “That must have been--”
“It’s better she died,” Keris muttered. “She wouldn’t have liked being out there where I was. I’ll stay here, though, if that’s alright.”
“Of course, it is,” I told him. “We’ll have some food brought up for both of you while you rest.”
Aurora and I headed for the stairs, and I could hear the hushed conversations taking place around us as we went. The Defenders were doing their best to keep the discussions calm, but I could tell they were struggling with the mages’ memories as well. Several of the patients shrugged and looked confused when they were asked questions, and many of them were fidgeting as badly as Keris had been.
“This is going to be a long day,” Aurora sighed as we came to the first floor again. “I can’t even imagine what sort of things these mages have seen and done, and I don’t want to.”
I gently caught Aurora’s elbow before she could wander off, and I pulled her into my arms because I’d been wanting to ever since Keris mentioned his wife. The half-elf buried her face against my chest and let out a long sigh, and I tucked a kiss in her blue hair as Shoshanne came over to us.
“How is everything going?” the healer asked, and she stroked Aurora’s back as she furrowed her brow.
“Great,” the half-elf mumbled against my shirt.
“It’s a bit depressing up there,” I admitted, “but it’s definitely an improvement to what they’ve been experiencing. We’re just getting some food for the two mages we’ve been talking with, and then we’ll move on to the next pair. How is it going down here?”
“Just fine,” she assured me. “I’m almost finished straightening up, and the last ten mages should be waking up soon. I’ll have Raynor help bring food up for the others.”
“Thank you,” I replied, and I was about to turn toward the stairs when Aurora tugged my shirt to pull me back.
“Mason, what about the smell they mentioned?” she asked, and her blue brows were knit with concern. “If it is heated metal they were smelling …”
“It probably was,” I told her honestly. “The Master is most likely forging mass amounts of weaponry up there. Not everyone he captures will be as well armed as the elves usually are, so he needs reserves for the rest of his troops. Let’s just hope he’s not trying to get creative anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Shoshanne asked uneasily.
“Remember the replica of the revolver that Rhys’ son used on me?” I said, and both women paled.
“Gods,” Aurora gasped. “What will we do if his whole fleet has the same weapons as us? An army of possessed mages armed
with revolvers is a terrifying thought.”
“Let me worry about weaponry,” I said as I tried for a reassuring grin. “The Master might be trying to copy the revolver, but he has no idea how to advance from there, and I do. Trust me.”
Aurora and I returned to the second floor to begin interviewing our next pair, and the process went pretty much the same. Both of the men we spoke to confirmed that there were many kinds of creatures at the Master’s fortress, and they were able to explain that he’d started secluding them based on their species due to their violent natures. One of the men had been in charge of letting a pack of sphinx out to hunt every day, and he recalled killing three of them with his Flumen powers when they suddenly turned on him.
I was frustrated to find neither of the men could tell me how they got in or out of the place, though, and even the process of unleashing the pack of sphinx had this gaping hole in its logic. The Flumen Mage became vacant and more confused the longer he tried to recall the process, and eventually I gave up trying to get an answer from him.
We’d just sat down to speak with a pair of girls when a Defender came in from downstairs, and he looked severely concerned as he came straight to me, clutched my arm, and pulled me to my feet.
“Defender Flynt,” the man muttered in an urgent voice, “five mages just left.”
I stumbled after the man once he finally released me, and Aurora quickly followed us, along with Defender Urn.
“I’m not trying to hold anyone against their will or anything,” I said as we came to the first floor. “If they would really rather leave--”
“No,” one of the Defenders interrupted, “they weren’t acting like the others.”
“What happened?” I asked uneasily, and Shoshanne stepped forward to listen closely with a steaming plate in her hands.
“I did what the healer asked us to do,” the Defender explained. “I removed the chains from the rest of the bodies, and I was cleaning up with the others when they started waking up. So, I said what I was supposed to, but none of them responded. They just got up and walked out.”